Monthly Archives: March 2011

From Ephesians by Peter S. Williamson, commenting on Ephesians 5:11-14:

Paul expects that when Christians confront immorality, whether by shining the light of Christian witness before the world, by gently reproving a brother or sister, or by openly censuring public wrongdoing, the situation will change: buteverything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomesvisible is light. In other words, whatever light shines on becomes illuminated, enlightened. Paul hopes for the conversion of people who are in darkness as a result of the light of Christ shining through Christians.

Of course, things do not always work out this way. Jesus, the perfect light, let his light shine by word and example. Some people received the light and became light; others rejected the light (John 1:9–11; 3:19–21). As followers of Jesus, we can expect the same mixed response to our testimony. However, we can be sure that if we want to overcome darkness, we need to turn on a light.

The first reading on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, is from Isaiah 7 and includes the famous words: “the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel…” (Isa 7:14). This verse is important since Matthew 1:22-23 explains that Jesus’ birth by the Virgin Mary is a fulfillment of this prophecy:

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us.’

However, the recently released NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition), like some other translations of Isa 7:14 (RSV, NRSV, and NJB) says “young woman” instead of “virgin.” This discrepancy in translations is confusing to many even well-informed Catholics. Raymond Arroyo, the host of EWTN’s popular “The World Over Live” recently expressed his perplexity at why the NABRE would make this change.

Before I did my graduate studies in Scripture, I thought that the RSV translation of “virgin” as “young woman” was simply due to scholarly disbelief in the virginal conception of Jesus, since I knew of biblical scholars who did not believe in miracles and did not acknowledge Jesus’ divinity.

It turns out it’s more complicated than that. The original Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14 uses the word almah, which really does mean “young woman” rather than “virgin.” On the other hand, the Septuagint version of Isaiah, the Greek translation that was used by Jews for a couple centuries before the birth of Christ, uses the more specific parthenos, which does mean virgin. At that time an unmarried Jewish almah would be assumed to be a parthenos, so the Septuagint translation was completely reasonable.

Although Matthew probably knew the Hebrew original, since he was writing in Greek (like the other authors of the New Testament), he naturally quotes the Greek Septuagint and says “the virgin [parthenos]shall be with child.”

So the simplest explanation is that the NABRE, RSV, NRSV, and NJB, correctly translate the Hebrew original as “young woman,” while the NAB (and the RSVCE and NIV), following Matthew 1:23, correctly translate the Septuagint version of Isa 7:14 as “virgin.”

But this raises the further questions of what Isaiah himself meant by this prophecy back in the eighth century B.C., and how it is that Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah. The Gospel of Matthewby Curtis Mitch and Ted Sri in the Catholic Commentary series explains the historical context of Isaiah 7:

This prophecy came in a period of crisis for the Davidic kingdom, as enemy armies threatened to invade Jerusalem and remove King Ahaz. With the dynasty’s survival in question, Isaiah foretold that an heir would be a sign that the kingdom would not end with Ahaz but would continue under God’s protection. Some might have seen in this prophecy a reference to Ahaz’s son, Hezekiah, who carried out a religious reform and delivered Judah from many evils, showing that God was still with the dynasty (2 Kings 18:1-6).

So what does this have to do with Jesus? Mitch and Sri continue:

However, Matthew sees a deeper level of meaning in the child of Isa 7:14… [because of the Septuagint’s use of parthenos]. Mary is the virgin who conceives and bears the royal son, Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel, therefore fittingly reveals Isa 7:14 as foretelling the virginal conception of the messiah.

In other words, when Matthew reads the word parthenos (“virgin”)in the Septuagint of Isaiah 7:14 in light of what he knows of the virginal conception of Jesus (a historical tradition known independently to Luke), he recognizes that God was saying something profound through Isaiah that went beyond the political crisis of the eighth century B.C. The LORD was speaking about a miraculous conception of the Messiah, the definitive heir to the throne of David, through the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:18). This is the way that God chose to be Emmanuel, “God with us” (Isa 7:14; 8:8; Matt 1:23). This is the way Isaiah’s extraordinary prophecies (Isa 9, 11) about this future ruler were to be fulfilled. In hindsight, in light of the further revelation of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, this interpretation of Isa 7:14 makes perfect sense.

The Pontifical Biblical Commission uses the example Matthew’s interpretation of Isa 7:14 to illustrate the fuller sense of Scripture (The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, II.B.3), which it defines “as a deeper meaning of the text, intended by God but not clearly expressed by the human author.

The fuller sense is an aspect of the spiritual sense, “the meaning expressed by the biblical texts when read, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, in the context of the paschal mystery of Christ and of the new life which flows from it.”

The fuller sense “has its foundation in the fact that the Holy Spirit, principal author of the Bible, can guide human authors in the choice of expressions in such a way that the latter will express a truth the fullest depths of which the authors themselves do not perceive. This deeper truth will be more fully revealed in the course of time-on the one hand, through further divine interventions which clarify the meaning of texts and, on the other, through the insertion of texts into the canon of Scripture.”

So, which translation of Isa 7:14 is correct? “the virgin shall be with child”? or “a young woman shall be with child”? Both can be defended reasonably. The second faithfully represents the Hebrew original of the Old Testament. The first faithfully represents the Septuagint and the way that the Gospel of Matthew and the Christian tradition interpret Isaiah’s prophecy in light of Jesus Christ. Whichever translation is used should be explained in a footnote.

Weighing the reasons, I think “the virgin shall be with child” is better suited to Catholic Bibles and to the use of Scripture in Christian liturgy. But obviously, some learned people, including the editors of the NABRE, think otherwise.

Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4, one of the longest dialogues in all Scripture, is full of Johannine symbolism and hidden layers of meaning.

The setting, Jacob’s well, provides an initial clue to the meaning of the story. As ancient Jews steeped in the Old Testament would recognize, a well is the place where, in a seemingly chance encounter, bridegroom meets bride. Isaac, Jacob and Moses all found their brides-to-be at a well (Gen 24; 29; Exod 2:15-21). These parallels suggest that so too, Jesus’ meeting with the woman of Samaria is a divinely appointed encounter, a meeting of love.

Jesus, thirsty from his long journey, asks the woman for a drink—thereby breaking the powerful social barriers that stood between men and women, Jews and Samaritans.

When the woman expresses her surprise, he answers:

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

This makes clear that the real purpose of Jesus’ request was that he might quench her thirst with “living water.” Living water (or flowing water) is a biblical image for the divine life for which human beings yearn, as in Ps 42:1-2:

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?

The Samaritan woman is intrigued.

“Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?”

She thinks Jesus is referring to flowing spring water in contrast to stagnant water. Like Nicodemus (3:4) and later the disciples (11:11-12), the woman misconstrues Jesus’ words about a spiritual reality in a literalistic way. But this gives Jesus an opportunity to explain further:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Later in the Gospel, John explicitly identifies the “living water” as the Holy Spirit.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive (John 7:37-39).

The feast mentioned here is Tabernacles, when the Jews commemorated the water that miraculously came forth from the rock that Moses struck (Exod 17:1-6). Jesus, then, is himself the life-giving Rock (cf. 1 Cor 10:3-4), the source of the Holy Spirit, and the way we drink his living water is by believing in him. The passion narrative portrays how this Rock is “struck”: after Jesus had died, “one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). From Jesus’ wounded heart flows divine life, the Holy Spirit, given to us in the sacraments of baptism (signified by the water) and the Eucharist (signified by the blood). As Paul expressed it, “God has poured his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5).

Jesus promises the Samaritan woman that his water will not only quench her thirst but become “a spring welling up” within her. This suggests that to the degree we drink from the inexhaustible fountain of God’s love, we become a fountain of life for others.

At this point the woman is finally ready to ask for the gift Jesus longs to give her:

“Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

She still does not understand; she is glad at the prospect of never again having to trek out to the well. Yet her request, like that of the Jews for the bread of life (John 6:34), is sincere. On a symbolic level, without knowing it she is asking for baptism (cf. John 3:5).

But Jesus’ reply is unexpected.

“Go, call your husband, and come here.”

Why this apparent digression? Now that her request has provided an opening, Jesus probes this woman’s heart, uncovering the place where she is wounded. Only the truly thirsty, who are willing to acknowledge what is parched and lifeless within them, are able to drink the living water. This woman’s brokenness, like that of so many others, is in the area of love. In fact, her life is a history of broken relationships.

Her reply, “I have no husband,” is somewhat evasive, but Jesus brings to light her true moral state.

“You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.”

Although this revelation is painful, the woman recognizes Jesus’ total lack of condemnation (cf. 4:39). He exposes sin not for the sake of condemnation but forgiveness and freedom.

At this point it is becoming clear that the dialogue is not merely personal. The woman’s life story, in fact, embodies the history of the people of Israel. According to 2 Kings, when the Assyrians invaded the Kingdom of Israel they planted precisely five foreign nations there, each with its god (2 Kg 17:24-31; cf. Josephus, Antiquities, 9.288). Through the prophets, God had revealed himself as the bridegroom of Israel, the true God whose love for his chosen people was passionate and utterly faithful. Yet instead of being reciprocated, his love had met with continuous betrayal in the form of idolatry, the worship of alien gods. The gentile nations imported into Samaria had only intensified the infidelity.

Surely, as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so have you been faithless to me, O house of Israel, says the Lord (Jer 3:20).

But God had promised that he would use even the national calamity of conquest and exile to eventually bring about the healing of Israel’s adultery.

In that day, says the Lord, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Baal.” For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. And I will make for you a covenant on that day…. And I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord. (Hos 2:16-20)

Against this biblical background the deeper significance of the story comes to light: Jesus, the Word made flesh, is the divine Bridegroom proposing marriage to Samaritan people! He is inviting this woman, and her whole nation, to return to their first and true husband, the living God.

At the end of the dialogue, after discovering that Jesus is indeed the promised Messiah, the woman hurries back into town bursting with the news of what has happened to her. Her encounter with Jesus has overflowed in a desire to share with others what she has experienced. The narrative thus portrays the movement from personal encounter to evangelization, a pattern that remains foundational to the Church’s mission today. By making ourselves present to this story, we too can be drawn into the same movement, experiencing more deeply the “gift of God” and being empowered to proclaim it with a new dynamism.

In recent days the headline news has been about governments killing their citizens and an earthquake and tsunami taking thousands of lives. These tragic events naturally raise the question, How can God let such things happen? What does Scripture say?

Luke 13:1-5 reports that Jesus was asked a similar question. When people came to him troubled by tragedies of the time, he answered in a way that is at once surprising and disturbing:

“There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.'”

Although we have no information about these events other than what Luke tells us, Josephus reports other acts of violence by Pilate against subjects who resisted his will. The fall of the tower of Siloam may have been due to an earthquake, faulty construction, or both. In principle, if not in magnitude, these incidents resemble Qaddafi’s violence in Libya and the disasters in Japan.

Why would God permit such disasters? Jesus rejects the explanation that probably came first to the minds of his hearers. These victims were not worse sinners than anyone else. Superficial biblical interpretation might have led to this conclusion. The Old Testament clearly teaches that sin will be punished and it was expected to occur in this life. For example, King David’s adultery and murder of Uriah brought terrible consequences to him and to his family (2 Sam 12-20). Israel’s idolatry and injustice eventually brought military defeat, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and exile from the promised land in 586 BC, just as Deuteronomy and the prophets foretold.

While Jesus’ audience assumed that the victims must have specially deserved the fate that befell them, modern audiences might assume the opposite, that the victims are innocent. But Jesus does not say that the victims were innocent. Rather he warns, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” The anomaly, Jesus implies, is not that they were judged, but that so far you have been spared. Repent, while opportunity remains!

In saying “you will all likewiseperish,” Jesus speaks figuratively as he often does. He does not literally mean that all who do not repent will meet an untimely death. Rather Jesus identifies these tragedies as signs warning of a far greater disaster that could overtake anyone of us, judgment and the loss of eternal life.

Jesus doesn’t address some of the questions that bother us. What about the innocent children who may have been among those who died? What about those who already repented? When will unjust rulers be held accountable?

But Jesus has implicitly answered these questions, when he teaches in the preceding chapter “do not fear those who can kill the body” but rather fear the one “who has the authority to cast into hell” (Luke 12:4-5). Unlike many people today who measure everything in terms of this life, Jesus presupposes the eternal perspective, the resurrection of the dead, and the justice of God. The repentant who have died tragically will rise again and receive their reward. Everyone else who has survived to the present will not escape punishment, unless they repent.

The message of these tragedies, Jesus says, is to summon all to repent. Every human being must be converted or suffer eternal loss.

What does it mean to repent? The Greek term for repent, metanoeō, means to change one’s mind. Jesus refers to the fundamental decision to do God’s will rather than one’s own. Luke’s Gospel makes the meaning more concrete through examples. For example, in Luke 3:8-14 John the Baptist insists that repentance entails right conduct or “fruits in keeping with repentance”—specifically, renouncing wrongdoing and sharing one’s goods with the needy. The woman who wept on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair shows that repentance entails faith and receiving forgiveness (Luke 7:36-50). Zacchaeus shows that repentance is marked by celebration, making amends, and extraordinary generosity, and that it results in salvation (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus teaches that it causes the angels to rejoice (Luke 15:7, 10). It is what the prodigal son does, but the elder brother refuses to do (Luke 15:18, 28). It is what the tax collectors and sinners do, but the scribes and Pharisees do not. It is what one thief does and another does not.

Jesus does not say that God directly causes these tragedies. In the case of political violence, the sinful choices of human beings are obviously responsible. In the case of natural disasters, the fallen created order that results from human sinfulness malfunctions to harm rather than serve human life (Gen 3:17-19; Rom 8:20). Nevertheless, God makes use of these evils to announce a warning that can lead to salvation.

An immense wave far greater than the one that struck Japan is rushing toward the whole human race and all that we hold dear. According to Jesus, for every person the difference between eternal salvation and eternal loss is repentance. May the tragedies in Japan and the Middle East lead us repent. May they lead us to pray for, and insofar as we are able, to persuade others to repent as well.

POSTSCRIPT

It’s one thing to know repentance is necessary, the point of Jesus’ warning and today’s post. It’s another to show someone the way to repentance. To see the gracious way that Jesus did it, see next Sunday’s Gospel from John 4, the subject of the next post by Dr. Mary Healy. Or read the rest of Luke!

From The Gospel of Matthew by Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri, commenting on Matthew 7:1-8:

Jesus was transfigured, which means he was transformed. His physical appearance changed such that his face shone like the sun. This recalls Moses’ shining face when he came down Mount Sinai (Exod 34:29–35). However, while there are similarities with Moses, Matthew shows how Jesus outshines him: Moses’ face shone because it reflected the divine glory he had seen, whereas Jesus’ face shines with his own glory, even before the cloud and divine voice are manifested on the mountain. Jesus possesses the glory that Moses saw. Moreover, while Exodus reports that Moses’ face was shining, Matthew’s description of Christ goes much further: his face shines “like the sun” and his clothes became white as light (compare the heavenly horseman in 2 Macc 11:8, the angel at the tomb in Matt 28:3, and the divine “Ancient One” of Dan 7:9).

The best discoveries often arrive unexpectedly. Just last week I was reading through the writings of the eighth century Greek Church Father, John of Damascus, and I came across an inspiring and lovely invitation to “knock” at the door of the Scriptures and enjoy the fruits of this “paradise” of God.

John’s love and appreciation for the Bible is obvious in what he writes. This short selection shows how important the Scriptures were to the Church Fathers, and how pivotal they were for their writings.

Beginning with the metaphor of knocking upon the door (“knock and it shall be opened”), John portrays the Scriptures in terms of the garden of Eden, the place of Paradise, lush and rich with life-giving fruit for us. He weaves into this description the action of the Trinity—how through the Scriptures the Spirit (the dove) bears us to the Son and through him to the Father.

“So let us knock at the very beautiful paradise of the Scriptures, the fragrant, most sweet and lovely paradise that fills our ears with the varied songs of inspired birds, that touches our heart, comforting it when grieving, calming it when angry, and filling it with everlasting joy, and that lifts our minds onto the back of the sacred dove, gleaming with gold and most brilliant, who bears us with his most bright wings to the only-begotten Son and heir of the husbandman of the spiritual vineyard and through Him on to the Father of lights.

“Let us not knock casually, but with eagerness and persistence, and let us not lose heart while knocking, for so it will be opened to us. Should we read once and then a second time and still not understand what we are reading, let us not be discouraged. Rather, let us persist, let us meditate and inquire.

“From the fountain of paradise let us draw everflowing and most pure waters springing up into life everlasting. Let us revel in them, let us revel greedily in them to satiety, for they contain the grace that cannot be exhausted.”

The second reading (Rom 5:12-19) contains one the most explicit NT identifications of a type of Christ: “Adam… is the type of the one to come” (v. 14). A type is a person, event, or institution in the OT that foreshadows Christ or something in the life of the Church. Typology “discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son” (Catechism 128).

What seems strange is that this lofty affirmation about Adam follows three verses that describe how Adam’s sin brought sin and death to the human race (Rom 5:12-19 is the biblical basis of the doctrine of original sin). How is Adam a type of Christ?

The verses that follow continue to emphasize the differences between Adam and Christ. Adam’s single transgression (to transgress means to violate a command) led to many sins (v. 12, 16) and brought condemnation and the reign of death to all. But Christ’s “gracious gift” and “righteous act” brought “abundance of grace,” “the gift of justification,” “acquittal,” and “life” to all.

The only likeness this text presents between the type, Adam, and Christ is that both determine the destiny of “all” who follow them. Each stands as the representative head of the human race, whose choices affect the rest.

The Old Testament and Gospel readings narrate the respective choices of Adam and Christ that shaped human destiny.

The first reading, Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7, depicts the creation of man, the Garden of Eden, and the transgression of Adam and Eve. God said that they could eat of any tree in the Garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

After giving credence to the serpent’s lies that death would not follow disobedience and that God did not have her best interests at heart (Gen 3:5-6), three motives attract the woman: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom” (v.7).

First John 2:16 identifies these three as the paradigmatic temptations of “the world”: “the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life” (literal translation).

Her husband follows her. From the beginning, the “sin of Adam” is not merely that of an isolated individual, but is intertwined with that of a human community that has first entertained temptation, then accepted the disobedience of others without objection, then chosen to disregard God’s word.

Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1-11 confronts the second Adam with the same three allurements. Jesus is tempted to satisfy physical appetite at the expense of spiritual nourishment (the desire of the flesh), to glorify himself by an act of presumption (the pride of life), and to enrich himself through false worship with “the kingdoms of the world and their magnificence” (the desire of the eyes).

In each case, rather than yield to the deceptive attraction of temptation, the second Adam responds with words from Scripture that express God’s will, a will he has embraced and refuses to transgress. Although the wilderness temptations occur after his baptism and before his ministry begins, they stand for all the particular temptations that occur in Jesus’ life. Jesus’ obedience in the wilderness and above all at the cross (Phil 3:5) is the means by which he saves us.

St. Paul sums up the difference between Adam and Christ in the last verse of the second reading, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:19). The difference is obedience.

Romans 6 and 8 explain how what Jesus has done becomes effective for all. The first few verses of Romans 6 explain how through baptism “our old self”—literally, our “old man,” Adam, “was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:6). Romans 8:1-13 explains the role of the “Spirit of Christ” (v. 9) in our living a life that is liberated from the power of sin.

Christ has recapitulated (repeated and summed up in himself) and redeemed the choices of our first parents; he has empowered us to recapitulate, to imitate, his life of obedience.

Just as Jesus fasted, prayed, and fed on God’s words so that he knew what to say and do when temptation came, so let us fast, and pray and feed on God’s word this Lent.

O Christ our head, second Adam from above, help us to follow you in the path of obedience. Help us by your Spirit to put off the old self, the nature we inherited from our first parents, and to put on the new self (Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:9-10), your nature which is ours through faith and baptism. Let us love God’s words and obey them just as you loved and kept your Father’s word. Amen!